Preemptive Karma: Newt Gingrich wants to "convert all of America", and has gone out of his way to assure the saddened students of Liberty University's graduating class that the death of Rev. Falwell doesn't mean the end of that dream. Some questions about sex-ed in public schools. Becky can relate all too well to Monica Goodling, and talks about the moral education of "good girls" who do bad things on behalf of the people who define good in their lives.

Memory Lane: Last Fall, Maccabee wrote about his conversations with a Romanian cab driver, a Ugandan cab driver and a Guatemalan professor, all of whom had lived under dictatorial regimes (Ceausescu, Idi Amin, Arbenz) in their own countries and didn't like what they saw happening in the U.S. From the professor, "A government gone authoritarian is nothing new. ... You college boys pound your copy of 1984. Orwell wasn't writing science fiction. He was writing history."

People have to accept responsibility for their actions. These women could have gotten real jobs and worked. Instead, they chose to sell sex acts. That’s their choice. If these women are adults, than they are adults. Infantilizing them, and pretending they are somehow absolved from all guilt isn’t really a feminist idea. Not unless feminism is about giving women a pass on everything because they are too childish to be held responsible. I thought it was about creating an equal society free of gender constraints.

You either criminalize a behavior because it causes harm to individuals and society, or you don’t. You don’t point to a retailer and tell them they’re off the hook while you arrest the person who buys what they’re selling. There’s no logic to that at all. It doesn’t help anyone, it just hookers and sex slaves to back to their pimps, while putting men in jail. That can be the only goal of this program. If they were designed to end sexual slavery, they’d be going after pimps, madames and slave smugglers. If you think prostitution is evil, but only blame men for it, then you are acting out of your own personal bias. You are not striving towards equality, you are looking for an emotional pay out.

Posted by: soullite at May 26, 2007 12:49 PM

soullite - I don't have time just at the moment to respond to the many, many errors of logic, judgement and systemic analysis in your comment. The world doesn't work that way, is all. Fortunately, Anatole France made the following statement once, which sums up most of what I'd want to say on the matter:

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread.”